


Dragonsblood

by SaucyAnglais



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaucyAnglais/pseuds/SaucyAnglais
Summary: Enemies to friends to lovers, but with dragons
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Dragonsblood

**Dragonsblood**

_There was chaos all around her. She ushered a small group of younger men and women down an alleyway too narrow for the guards’ horses, wondering how a peaceful demonstration had turned sour so quickly. She shouldn’t have come - the king’s soldiers seemed determined to put her behind bars as the ringleader behind the peasants’ unrest. She ducked down another street, determined to get all of her people to safety.  
  
On her left - a rider coming up fast. She turned a corner and found herself in the open courtyard before the castle. Not good - horses had the advantage in this open space. She ducked a blow from a halberd, got her bearings, and gathered up another clump of demonstrators, who had been cut off from escape. “Duck around that rider there - throw rocks if you have to, just get out!”  
  
Another rider, this time coming straight on. She tried to run but a loose stone took her down hard on her knee. They were still behind her, bearing down. No time to run. She breathed deep, and set off a flare of light that made the horse rear up in alarm. She looked up past the flailing hooves, to see the Captain of the Guard glaring down at her with fury. And then, something else. All the people in the courtyard had stopped yelling; guards and civilians alike were staring and pointing upwards…. _

Ketla came to gradually, with the slight sensation of pins and needles throughout her entire body. There was a demonstration that became a riot… the captain of the guard coming after her...and now…?  
  
She opened her eyes and tried to turn over, to discover she was chained to the floor. The room...no, cell... was dim and small and seemed to be made of stone. Something about the walls didn’t look quite right, but she wasn’t ready to bother with that just yet. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the events of what she assumed was the day before. Had she been arrested? Was this the castle dungeon? The guards had been after her for weeks, after all. No, she felt sure she would remember that… There was something else, something at the edge of memory - something in the sky…  
  
She frowned. Like her magic, pushing too hard at memory would more often cause it to fail than bully it into working. She breathed deeply instead, relaxed her brow and her shoulders. She opened her eyes to focus on her surroundings instead of the hole in her mind.  
  
The first thing she noticed when she actually looked was that there were no torches - just a faint blue light suffusing the room. The stones that made up the walls and floor were different sizes, like the stone cottages on the outskirts of town; it was hard in the dimness to tell if their color was uniform or varied, but they all seemed to have a faint shimmer in the gloom. Staring at them, she realized what had seemed so wrong before: the stones were not joined together with mortar, but instead the spaces between them was green and woody, a thick vine or possibly thin branches, twining through and around each stone and holding it in place.  
  
A shiver ran down the back of her neck. No magic holder she knew could do something like this…it would take hundreds of years, or magic more potent than any human she knew. It certainly ruled out the castle dungeon - the King wouldn’t let magic like this anywhere near.  
  
Her mind sent up a flare at the idea of “not human,” and she followed its trajectory, never pushing too hard. Not human, not human… and something in the sky…  
  
Her thoughts were cut off abruptly by the sound of groaning from nearby. Someone else was here, and waking up.  
  
Ketla pulled her attention away from the strange masonry and turned to look behind her. A large rounded opening was barred with thick, woody offshoots of the same plant that linked the stones. The chains that ran from her ankle to the floor, however, were certainly metal.  
  
“Hello?” called a deep, musical voice, muffled and echoing slightly by the architecture. It seemed to be coming from the next cell over.  
  
“Hello…” Ketla responded uncertainly. “Are you alright?”  
  
There was another groan. “My head is pounding, but everything else seems to be intact. Do you know where we are?”  
  
Ketla shook her head, before realizing a little muzzily that her companion could not see it. “No idea,” she said aloud. “Some kind of prison or dungeon, I would guess. But…” she hesitated. “Not the castle one, I’m guessing.”  
  
“Definitely not,” the voice agreed. “So we’ve been captured. But why, and by whom?”  
  
_Whom?_ Ketla thought. “I’m not sure, but I’m working on a guess. Look at the walls.” She brought her legs up to examine the shackles more closely.  
  
“The walls? ...What the…?” the voice wavered.  
  
She turned the metal this way and that. The blue light was giving her no help. She breathed again, holding her palm up, and called gently on her magic. A small white flame, no bigger than a candle, began to glow in her palm. She brought it closer to the chain. “Look, I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘mysterious voice’ - what’s your name?”  
  
“Uh… It’s Runar.” Her neighbor was, by the sound of it, still mesmerized by the architecture. The clink of chains and a few footsteps came from the cell, and a faint murmuring Ketla couldn’t quite make out, until: “How… Is it magic, do you think?”  
  
“I mean, probably?” She responded. “Unless someone has a lot of time and patience.” The metal of the chain, she could see now, was warm in tone - though dull, not bright or shiny like gold. “What I’m more interested in right now is this chain they’ve got us locked up with.” As she brought her light down the length of it, she could see blue-green verdigris where links met. She swore as the implications clicked into place.  
  
“What is it?” came Runar’s voice, all concern.  
  
“It’s made of bronze.”  
  
A pause. “...So?”  
  
“So it’s not made of iron? Like you would expect to find on something used to chain someone up?” She sighed when there was still no response, and continued as though she were explaining things to her young nephew. “Why would someone choose to avoid iron and use a less strong and more brittle metal in a PRISON? ...Who, traditionally, cannot handle IRON?”  
  
That seemed to do the trick. The voice swore expressively. “Fae.”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Fates, I remember now! There were these...dragons! They just appeared out of nowhere! Dozens of them...they grabbed so many people!”  
  
She remembered them now. Dragons such that her people hadn’t seen for generations. Civilians and soldiers alike trying to flee, as the huge gleaming beasts appeared as if from nowhere, and began to swoop down on the crowd, carrying people off in their talons. A sensation of being lifted upwards… “Yep. I remember.” She frowned. “I wonder if the others are around here somewhere, too.”  
  
“Huh? Oh, that makes sense.” Then, in a huge, melodious bellow: “HELLOOOO? IS ANYONE ELSE HERE?”  
  
Ketla raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I would have been a bit more discrete, in case the dragons are still around, but okay,” she muttered, ears ringing a bit.  
  
To her surprise, a thin voice much farther down the hall called out in reply. “Hello?” She thought she heard someone stirring across the dim corridor, too.  
  
After a few minutes, there were more voices, and sounds of movement. A chorus of “Hellos” and “Where are we?” and people calling out loved ones’ names filled the long dungeon. Some of the voices were young, and Ketla was sure she could hear a child crying.  
  
Ketla sidled up as close to the shared wall of her cell as she could get. “Runar?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Hang on - you’re not Runar Collowhand, are you? The farmer?”  
  
“No.”  
  
A reedy voice farther down the hall called out, “Hello? Is someone calling me?”  
  
“Who’s that?”  
  
“Runar Collowhand”  
  
“What? No. Shut up, Collowhand. I mean, hello, but I’m not talking to you.”  
  
“Oh. Sorry.”  
  
Ketla shook her head. She turned back, speaking just loudly enough for her neighbor to hear. “Runar, we’ve got to get these people out of here.”  
  
“I agree. What do you propose?”  
  
“Well, I was thinking we could -” But her thought was cut off. By the sound of it, a huge heavy door had opened at the end of the corridor. The voices around her fell silent.  
  
A loud sliding and scraping came down the middle of the cells, and the dragon came into view. As was often the case with empty space, Ketla hadn’t realized how large the corridor dividing the rows actually was until it was full of dragon. She had an impression of reptilian snout, gleaming teeth, and iridescent green scales; there was a smell of incense. Then the fabric of reality shifted and blurred, and a slim, handsome man stood in the beast’s place. There was still something predatory about the eyes, and he had a very organic-looking iridescent green breastplate and pauldrons with a leather tunic. He unlocked the cell door with a stroke of his finger, gestured vaguely at the bronze chains, which opened with a snk, and took her by the elbow. “Come along, _eirrn_.” The last word was like a strange purr or trill, but Ketla couldn’t devine the meaning of it. All down the row, people were being escorted out of their cells by the human-shaped dragons.  
  
Ketla whipped her head around, trying to spot her new conspirator; maybe in the bustle she could nudge herself and her guard that way, arrange for the two of them to stand near each other, to formulate a plan. Something about the voice had seemed, well, reliable at least. Solid. Even if she couldn’t get near Runar, at least she would know what her companion looked like, and could find them later.  
  
People shifted, and a gap appeared, just in time for her to lock eyes with the woman being escorted out of the neighboring cell. She was tall and leanly muscled, with long silver hair - but this hardly registered because the face...the face was familiar. It was a face that had glared at her from beneath a helmet countless times, chased her on horseback, and, once, even arrested her.  
  
The Captain of the King’s guard.  
  
Runar-the Captain’s eyes went wide, and she mouthed something that looked like “You!” Of course, there was no chance of her not recognizing Ketla. She’d probably put up most of the wanted posters herself.  
  
There were other familiar faces as she was lead, gently but firmly down the corridor and out of the prison. Neighbors, townsfolk, even courtiers she recognized were mixed in with strangers she didn’t.  
  
Soon, however, she forgot to look at the faces around her as the scenery drew her attention. After passing out of the prison, they went up a wide, rough stairwell (big enough for dragons, she assumed) made of flat stones set into earth, that lead through an enormous circular stone archway. This took them through a room with diaphanous pink walls, like the petals of a flower, another hallway of green vines, which opened into a large room with walls composed, like the cells below, of stones held together by some living flora - but here the stems were greener and leafier, the stones more pale and lovely, and the room itself more airy and well lit. The effect was overall very pleasant, until she noticed the enormous cage in the center of the room.  
  
The door of the cage was opened, the lot of them were led in, and the cage locked, before the guards walked out again through a different doorway. A few of them stretched and the air shifted, and they were enormous and reptilian again, dragons in shades of green and red and gold. Others remained humanoid as they left, for reasons of their own.  
As soon as the last one turned out of sight, Ketla felt a rough hand spin her around and found herself face to face with Runar. Her face was contorted in anger, her silver eyes narrowed. “You!” she hissed. “How DARE you make me think you were an ally? You didn’t think to tell me I was talking to the most wanted criminal in Edrasil?!”  
The absurdity of it all was like a slap in the face. “Excuse me?” she spat back. “I didn’t think it was really relevant when we’d just been KIDNAPPED by DRAGONS!” She stepped forward belligerently, until the two of them would have been nose to nose, if Runar wasn’t about a head and a half taller than she was. “How about you? Runar _Fethrfallen_? How was I supposed to guess that? Besides, I thought all of the King’s dogs would jump at any opportunity to announce their full, idiotic titles.”  
Runar flared her nose and made a gesture as though to reach for a weapon - which of course wasn’t there. Ketla reared a hand back instinctively, calling on her magic and gathering it there, furious and stung. Her power surged and then sputtered; in her anger she was pushing it too hard. She glared at the fizzling ball of flame as though this were its fault, and pulled herself together enough to take a calming breath. She relaxed and let go, but as her anger faded, so did her impulse to harm the woman in front of her.  
Runar, however, was not so tranquil. Upon remembering her lack of weapon, she crouched into a defensive fighter’s stance, and as Ketla relaxed her arm, she switched to a more aggressive posturing. When Ketla made no move to counter or resist, she apparently decided to go for broke: “You’re under arrest, Ketla Nikols, for crimes against the crown.”  
  
“Really?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Does it even count if I’m already someone else’s prisoner? I don’t mean to be insulting, but you’re a lot dumber than you look, Captain.” The air between them sparked as they sized each other up, each waiting for the other to make the next move.  
  
In the tense silence, a baby began to cry.  
  
They both looked towards the source of the sound, a little guiltily. Ketla realized that the other people in the cage looked miserable. Some were staring at them, others were huddled in corners, trying to comfort each other. The young lady with the baby rocked him, making soothing shushing noises, and tried to wrap more of her cloak around him.  
  
Ketla looked sideways at Runar and nudged her head to indicate an empty corner of the cage. Runar glared, but followed.  
  
“Look,” Ketla began in a low voice. “You and I are the closest things these people have to authority figures. If we are going to get out, and get them out of here, we might need to set our personal history off to the wayside for a while.  
  
Runar frowned, sparing another glance at the miserable civilians. She brought her hand up absentmindedly to where her weapon would be, again. Ketla wondered if it was a nervous habit of hers to hold it when she was anxious. Their captors had somehow stripped her not only of her arms, but her armor too - it made sense, it would have been made of iron. Ketla had never seen her without it. The Captain looked somehow softer and more vulnerable in just her leather jerkin, and she was curvier than Ketla would have guessed...  
  
“I suppose,” Runar said at last. “But this cooperation will not get you preferential treatment when we return. I’m still going to arrest you.”  
  
“If we return,” muttered Ketla, rolling her eyes. “Fine, what-ever you say. Now let’s see if we can figure out a way out of here.” She gestured towards the exits leading off the chamber. “The dragons went off down that way. We came in that way. So one of those two tunnels is probably our best bet…”  
  
She turned her attention to the bars themselves: heavy brass, wound around and reinforced with foliage. “Hmm.” She made her way around the perimeter. “I think the lock is magical. I might be able to do something with it,” she said over her shoulder.  
  
Runar followed but did not answer; she was looking up and examining the roof of the cage, which seemed to be made of the same bars.  
  
After a few moments of Ketla swearing and sweating and fiddling with the flat, featureless lock, the taller woman nudged her. She broke off, irritated. “What?”  
  
Runar took no notice. She was looking around the cage in deep concentration. “There’s no floor to this cage,” she said slowly. “It’s heavy, but if we apply enough force to one side, I’d wager we can tip it. Not that I make wagers,” she added.  
  
Ketla, tiny and wiry, looked at the heavy structure doubtfully. “I don’t think so.. It’s way too big. Besides, I’m sure I’m getting somewhere with this lock…” She turned back to it.  
  
“I’m doing it,” Runar said, taking no notice. She raised her voice into the Captainly bellow Ketla was familiar with. “You, you two, you, and...you,” she announced, pointing out a few sturdy-looking men and women, “Come over to this end. We’re going to try to tip this thing over. Nikols, keep an eye out.” It was a voice that was used to being obeyed, and people did, indeed, obey it. Though Runar did not notice two of the civilians she had pointed at looking to Ketla first, who nodded.  
  
The lot of them gathered at one end and each took hold of a bar. Runar had two in the middle. “On my count! One! Two! Three!” They all pushed, shoulders against the bars, and there was a great noise of effort, and their feet cut grooves in the dirt. For a moment nothing happened. Runa’s back arched with the strain, and her lean muscles stood out…  
  
Ketla was suddenly very warm.  
  
The far edge of the cage began to lift off the ground. It hovered a few spans over the dirt, but went no farther. Ketla stared at it, dumbfounded for a moment, then rushed forward to add more force to the push. Several others followed. The wall moved more, and creaked. Runar looked down at Ketla and gave what could only be described as a smirk, before, with one last heave, the cage reached its tipping point and toppled like a giant, with a clang and much rustling of leaves.  
  
A few people cheered, and some embraced in excitement. Ketla had overbalanced on the last push, and lay sprawled on the dirt, winded but triumphant. She rolled and began to push herself up when a hand extended itself in her field of vision. She looked up; it was Runar’s. The Captain pulled her to her feet, beaming. “You see? Just needed a good, honest effort. None of your cheap magic.”  
  
Ketla smiled in spite of the dig, but only briefly. “Now we need to figure out our next step. I think we should pick one of these tunnels - but we’d better decide quickly before the guards get ba-”  
  
She stopped mid-gesture because the guards, in fact, were already back, and were staring at their captives with the look one gives a child who has just broken something valuable.  
  
She sighed as the group was surrounded. Clumps of civilians were separated, and their hands bound in some gleaming rope. Then they were led, in more or less single file, down the path from which the guards had emerged.  
  
Runar ended up right in front of Ketla. She glanced over her shoulder and hissed, “You were supposed to be standing watch!”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry! Should I have just left you just barely nudging the damn cage? It looked like you needed help, I helped. Is that a crime?”  
  
“Says the criminal.”  
  
Keylas guard gave her rope a tug in the opposite direction. “Quiet,” he said, a strange accent thick on his tongue - and his still- sharp teeth, she noticed.  
  
That was the end of that conversation, so Ketla walked silently fuming, inventing cutting remarks to say to Runar later. _That self-important, bossy jackass._  
  
The captives were lead through a really quite short hall, and into a larger and far more grand chamber, with roughly faceted, opalescent walls that curved upwards to dome overhead. The room held a veritable crowd of fae - mostly dragons in both forms, but she spotted some variation amongst them - here a remarkably hairy shoulder, there the shimmer of a wingtip, or an eponymous red cap.  
  
The were arranged before a wide dais, on which rested two thrones - and it was to this dais Ketla and the other prisoners were led.  
  
A striking dark-haired man - with eyes so green she could see them from here, and a crown of the same hue that gleamed like gold - stood in front of one throne. Beside him was a woman with skin the color of driftwood and hair like a waterfall. Her eyes, though not as bright as the man’s, were clearly mismatched. The two of them stood solemnly until all the captives were arranged on the dais. Finally, the man spoke.  
  
“As you can see, our dragons’ foray into the Other Realm was successful. After several generations of being separated from us and mingled with mortal blood, our kin, have finally been reclaimed, and returned to their rightful home!” At this there was a great cheer.  
  
_Kin?_ Ketla mused. She wasn’t terribly surprised at the implication she might have dragon blood - _After all, magic has to come from somewhere._ And she’d heard of places a few kingdoms over that were known to have several individuals with merfolk and selkie blood, for example, who had quite powerful magic - formidable fishers and sailors, many of them. She wondered which of her family had dallied with a dragon. Dragon ancestry would explain her penchant for light and flame…  
  
She realized they were being moved again. Lost in thought, she had apparently missed the end of the King’s announcement.  
  
They were ushered back into the antechamber, where the cage had been restored to its original position, and two small, slim, barefoot fae were kneeling next to it on adjacent sides - making some kind of adjustments, it appeared. As they drew closer, she realized the vines twined round the bars were now rooted firmly in the dirt at several places. A few of the roots were still growing and digging, swiftly enough to be visible. When the... gardeners? locksmiths?... appeared satisfied, they stood and nodded to the guards, the group was untied and herded in, and - just like that - they were back where they started.  
  
Oh well, trivial to fight even with her enemy right now, especially since they had seemed to actually be making some headway when they worked together. She looked around for Runar. Better to have two minds working on the escape plan, after all.  
  
Runar was on the opposite side of the cage somehow, and staring straight in front of her, eyes wide as though she’d just seen a spirit.  
  
“Hey, Captain-” she began, but broke off when Runar turned to fix her with a look of abject disgust. It was the look she’d had when trying to run Ketla down in the courtyard. _There’s the Runar I know, she thought bitterly._  
  
“Get away from me,” she snapped. “You... monster! You’re not even human, the lot of you. His majesty was right, you magic users are... infiltrators! Traitors to the crown!”  
Ketla looked back towards the doorway that led to the huge chamber. “His majesty…?”  
  
Runar narrowed her eyes and gesticulated wildly. “Not that… THING! Our king...MY king! Back home!!” Her tirade finished, she slumped to the ground.  
  
It wasn’t a new sentiment, but in their brief alliance she had almost forgotten. It still stung. Something still niggled at her mind though, and it took a long moment of painful dismay before she could put her finger on it.  
  
“But… you’re here too.”  
  
“What?” snapped the Captain.  
  
“They’ve kidnapped their kin. Magic users. You, too.”  
  
Runar stared. She appeared to come to a decision. “They’ve obviously done that just to torture me. Locking me up in here with you lot! I’ve offended them or something by upholding the anti-magic edicts so aggressively.”  
  
_Oh, you big dumb oaf_ , she thought, kneeling down. “I don’t think so,” she said gently. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think you might have dragon blood, too.”  
  
Runar shook her head violently as though trying to escape the sound of her words. “I come from a RESPECTABLE family!” Her hand went to the empty sheath at her hip.  
  
“Okay, look, I know you’re going through something, but that’s kind of offensive.” She swept an arm to indicate the other people around them. “I don’t think respectability has anything to do with it. There’s nobles here, courtiers.”  
  
“I’m not like YOU. Magic is a cheat! I worked HARD to become good at the skills I have.”  
  
Ketla set her jaw. “You know what? Fine. It’s not my responsibility to help you work through this.” And she walked away.  
  
She went to the opposite side of the cage, to be with people she knew - _her_ people, people that didn’t uphold stupid, bitter edicts and deny the reality in front of them and try to hit her with a damn horse. People that didn’t smirk at her stupidly when they were right, or look at her with passionate hatred in their shining silver eyes…  
  
**End of Part 1**


End file.
